I really like how he shared what he and team did for New Years (or there after) it makes us feel closer to the development team, but he should have thrown up a little teaser for 2.0 at the end. Nothing major just a picture and a little line like this; "Hey thanks for your continued support and with your support this is what we're working towards at the end of this year".

I was honestly sure someone was going to rant about how they haven't showed anything and the team has been doing nothing, glad they haven't.

It explains a lot on why we haven't gotten a lot of information lately. Glad Yoshi is now taking measures to watch his health. As much as I love his enthusiasm, he works much too hard to improve the game if he's frequently going to the hospital. Hopefully he cuts back a little bit and have his assistant directors take over. It's no joke that game development positions are very demanding, but he still needs time off every once in a while.

I was honestly sure someone was going to rant about how they haven't showed anything and the team has been doing nothing, glad they haven't.

It explains a lot on why we haven't gotten a lot of information lately. Glad Yoshi is now taking measures to watch his health. As much as I love his enthusiasm, he works much too hard to improve the game if he's frequently going to the hospital. Hopefully he cuts back a little bit and have his assistant directors take over. It's no joke that game development positions are very demanding, but he still needs time off every once in a while.

Edited, Jan 23rd 2012 10:18am by UltKnightGrover

You didn't read the official forums topic, have you? People are literally slicing their wrists because it was more of a personal letter.

I have to laugh at some of the reactions. It's almost as if they don't realize that New Years' is a very big deal to the Japanese.

Either way, the guy does need to take care of himself. I know people are anxious for info, but really. At least they have a game to play while they devs are working on 2.0, where the alternative would have been to (channeling president madagascar) Shut Down Everything.

I was honestly sure someone was going to rant about how they haven't showed anything and the team has been doing nothing, glad they haven't.

It explains a lot on why we haven't gotten a lot of information lately. Glad Yoshi is now taking measures to watch his health. As much as I love his enthusiasm, he works much too hard to improve the game if he's frequently going to the hospital. Hopefully he cuts back a little bit and have his assistant directors take over. It's no joke that game development positions are very demanding, but he still needs time off every once in a while.

Edited, Jan 23rd 2012 10:18am by UltKnightGrover

You didn't read the official forums topic, have you? People are literally slicing their wrists because it was more of a personal letter.

It's kind of valid in my opinion. People are paying now and the Lodestone was specifically set up for SE to communicate things about FFXIV, the game, to the public. With issues like payment methods and server mergers still up in the air, I think paying customers might want to see things like that on Lodestone instead of reading about the personal lives of the developers. There is other social media that could be used for conveying personal information about the FFXIV developers (Twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc).

I do feel sympathetic because of Yoshi's health issues, but I think that Lodestone wasn't the best place to write about it. I feel that the letter should have addressed or at least acknowledged some of the issues their paying customers have, even if tacked on at the end (e.g. We are aware that people can't yet pay and want to - we are close to having other payment methods). Also, this is the first Letter from the Producer since subs started - it may have been a good idea to 'wow' people with it. Additionally, if you're eagerly awaiting information on server merges to fix your population woes and you read the new letter and it talks about nothing related to the game itself you may end up disappointed. Letters from the Producer have always talked about game progress, updates, concepts, etc. Players should be able to expect that from them.

I could compare it to buying an iPhone from Apple that has major issues. Let's say Apple put out a public statement on their official website 2-3 weeks after you bought the buggy phone and you're looking for at least an ETA on the fix. Then you read the statement and it's purely about the iPhone developers' holiday events and how sick they were and doesn't mention the issues then you may end up angry. In my opinion, it's really no different.

All that aside, I hope Yoshi is better and starts taking care of himself. No game is more important than his health. :)

I have to admit I was a little disappointed in this letter. In my opinion the bulk of the letter should have been about the game itself with a small note about their holidays. Instead we get several paragraphs of text and 4 images having nothing to do with the game itself vs. one line telling us they are working on 2.0 and a note at the bottom saying he will be updating the 1.21 list of changes to the game soon with 0 images pertaining to FFXIV.

It's too bad he got sick, but honestly we didn't need to be notified about that in a Letter from the Producer. I guess that's the part that bothers me. Everything he writes is ok, just not what I was expecting to read in a Letter from the Producer.

However I don't feel the need to rant about it on the official forums...

I was honestly sure someone was going to rant about how they haven't showed anything and the team has been doing nothing, glad they haven't.

It explains a lot on why we haven't gotten a lot of information lately. Glad Yoshi is now taking measures to watch his health. As much as I love his enthusiasm, he works much too hard to improve the game if he's frequently going to the hospital. Hopefully he cuts back a little bit and have his assistant directors take over. It's no joke that game development positions are very demanding, but he still needs time off every once in a while.

Edited, Jan 23rd 2012 10:18am by UltKnightGrover

You didn't read the official forums topic, have you? People are literally slicing their wrists because it was more of a personal letter.

I try to avoid anything that's not a strategy guide for gearing a class and preparing for a battle or on the dev tracker. As much negative (and misinformed) as some of the people here are sometimes, I prefer posting here over the official forum.

Even if i never log into the game again I can not wait for 2.0! The drama will be crazy. SE seems determined to sink this ship. If 2.0 turns out to be a good game with a large fan base it will be a miracle!

I hope next letter Yoshi takes us on a video tour of his house while explaining to us about a recent illness he has had.

Even if i never log into the game again I can not wait for 2.0! The drama will be crazy. SE seems determined to sink this ship. If 2.0 turns out to be a good game with a large fan base it will be a miracle!

I hope next letter Yoshi takes us on a video tour of his house while explaining to us about a recent illness he has had.

Maybe the official forums can have a contest to see which of the shrieking, soulless harpie maidens there can win a date with Yoshi P and then he can LFTP about it.

No, I'll stop assaulting the carpet, lol. I just thought that it was a really thick carpet, and strangely textured, at that.

With that out of the way: is it not considered indelicate to brag about how much you donate to a temple? I would think that it defeats the point of the spirituality behind it; it reminds me of the way Anglicans cover the casket of a dead person such that they can't display their worldly wealth - a tradition that, although I'm certainly not Anglican, I thought was pretty neat. Although maybe it's a less private matter in Japan, which is likely more communal anyway. And maybe it's a bad idea to bring up death rituals, real-life people's behaviour, and religion all at once, and on the internet at that!

____________________________

"... he called to himself a wizard, named Gallery, hoping by this means to escape the paying of the fifteen hundred crowns..." (Machen 15)

"Thus opium is pleasing... on account of the agreeable delirium it produces." (Burke para.6)

"I could only read so much for this paper and the syphilis poem had to go."

Is it just me or are the English translators for Yoshi-P and the rest of the Japanese dev team unable to produce terse, grammatically accurate, and free-flowing translations? *sighs*

I bring this up because if these same translators are translating our English/Western views to Yoshi-P and dev team, in light of how they translate *** to English, I fear some things may be lost in translation!! That would be a shame.

The amount of QQ'ing there has reached astronomical levels on the official forum thread. If the DeLorean ran on QQ I am sure I could fill up enough buckets to last me a lifetime and time travel at my leisure. It is like carnivores (die hard fans) and herbivores (everyone else). Considering that almost everyone on the forums is a die hard fan one way or another, it's as if they are killing each other over there. No more herbivores so I guess the remaining carnivores are eating each other up over any little "disagreement." Guess you could say it has reached critical mass. Funny to think someone posted before the billing period started as to whether the forums were going to get better with the undesirables out of the way. Guess it must of been his 1st MMO with a forum attached to it.

That letter about jobs (and more importantly the implementation of it) better be amazing because I don't see anything else that may be considered major till Version 2.0 And no I don't consider Garuda or the Odin fights to be major. Chances are you guys are going to beat them within a couple of days. Only thing that may be awful is the RNG if Square Enix decides to "lengthen" that content. On top of that it seems they closed that thread today stating:

"Unfortunately, it seems that the thread has run its course, so at this time, the thread will be closed. As always, your participation is always appreciated. We hope that through these forums, we continue to build a better community. Thanks again, and best wishes to all of you!"

A better community you say? Whelp I'm off to April 14, 1865 to save someone... off to the DeLorean!

Yes, I read all 30+ pages of that thread. It was epic. It does seem like something has happened in the community though. It seems like there are a lot of people left who just like Yoshi P as a person, but not really like FFXIV, so anything critical (constructive or otherwise) about FFXIV becomes a direct reflection on him and they freak out on whoever said it... and then there's the people who like Yoshi P but insofar as what he can do for FFXIV.

Honestly though, that Letter from the Producer was straight up blog material.

Tanaka ran FFXI without landing himself in the hospital and still managed to post pictures of himself washing his several prize-winning corgis (I'm serious).

Tanaka was only the Producer of the original Final Fantasy XIV Nobuaki Komoto was the Director of the original Final Fantasy XIV

Tanaka was demoted/fired what have you, Komoto was demoted to a general designer in the new team.

Yoshida took place as both Producer and Director.

I understand that you're trying to make comparisons, but that one isn't valid because a Producer is more of an overseer of a project and Director actually handles development of the game.

There is a reason why Final Fantasy XI went through several different phases throughout the years, it had several different directors.

Koichi Ishii (until 2003: Left to form Grezzo which did the Zelda OOT port for 3DS) Nobuaki Komoto (from 2003 until 2008: Left to be the original FFXIV Director) Koichi Ogawa (from 2008 until 2010: Came up with the idea of the add-ons) Akihiko Matsui (2010: Left to become battle system designer in FFXIV) Mizuki Ito (from 2010: Current)